Smith & Wesson
(dir. Tony Y. Reyes, 1988) It's Eighties buddy cop flicks - with Joey
de Leon and Vic Sotto as "Mayumi Vice" tracking down a drug
ring led by Paquito Diaz and his head goons Rene Requiestas (as Don
Johnson Wacks!) and Tsing Tong Tsai. Tito Sotto has a cameo on the
Hong Kong set spouting pigeon Chinese, and brother Val Sotto operates
a Bloodsport tournament in which Vic must fight to the death. The
verdict: NUTS, in a good way! Also stars Beverly Vergel, Panchito,
Paquito Diaz, Mon Alvir and Jaime Fabregas.

Elvis And James
(dir. Tony Y. Reyes, 1989) takes on Fifties music icons via Eighties
high school comedies, with Joey de Leon playing Elvis Presto with
stick-on Brillo sideburns and Rene Requiestas as the almost
Dean-alike James Ducuycoy, two delusional thirty-something
delinquents in leather jackets and Brylcream smoking, preening and
mocking their way through some classic rock'n'roll evergreens.
Whether on a beach or in the cold in Baguio, the two don't seem to
fit anywhere, but still manage to woo their girls, Long Tall Sally
and Marilyn Monroy, via a recreation of the competition in Dirty
Dancing - this time with Rene sniffing armpits and dry-humping his
companion's leg. To demonstrate just how self-referential Regal's
series had become, dwarf sidekick Noel "Ungga" Ayala
appears as a diminutive customer in a music shop called Sek's Organs.
First he complains loudly that he can't reach a paino's keyboard,
then turns to Joey de Leon and complains about his disappointing rate
of pay for acting in Starzan!

SuperMouse And The
Robo-Rats (dir. Tony Y. Reyes, 1989) Orphaned baby is left at a fair
and grows into a carnival barker (Joey de Leon) who transforms via a
magic amulet into a mouse-eared, whiskered superhero and saves his
carnie friends from Paquito Diaz's goons, bank robbers, and a
spaceship full of Robo-Rats. Gap-toothed Rene Requiestas is at his
best playing hapless Doro the Magician, and Joey and Rene's bug-eyed
dwarf sidekick from Starzan (Noel “Ungga” Ayala) performs a
karaoke love song FROM HELL. The best bit, however, is the Star Wars
moment when the lead Robo-Rat (a furry and bewhiskered Ruel Vernal)
takes off his Darth Vader helmet and announces to Joey in a helium
voice "I am your father…"! With Manilyn Reynes, Carmina
Villaroel and Lucita Soriano.

Small Medium Large:
Fits All Sizes (dir. Joey de Leon & Tony Y. Reyes, 1990) Amiable,
if ultimately pointless, Starzan spinoff features Rene (Cheeta-eh)
Requiestas as a penniless probinsyano, his usual dwarf sidekick Noel
“Ungga” Ayala as a cigarette and sweepstake ticket vendor, and
child-like giant Jimmy Santos as the titular trio “Fernando, Paul,
Junior” (Fernando Poe Jr, geddit?). Also stars Panchito, and with a
brief cameo by Joey de Leon. Written by Joey and frequent
collaborator Reyes, the ostensibly plotless Small Medium Large exists
solely to showcase each comic’s pecularities, which include
mangling pop songs, randomly throwing insults and in-jokes, hurling
the poached egg-eyed, mulleted Ungga through the air like an errant
Cabbage Patch Doll, and bursting into a spontaneous chorus of
Prince’s “Kiss” whenever the action flags.

Goosebusters
(onscreen title Mumu? Anong Malay Ko!/"Monster? What Do I Know!"
dir. Tony Y. Reyes, 1991) Comedian/co-writer Joey de Leon and
director Reyes continue their winning streak of Hollywood lampoons,
this time Ghost AND Ghostbusters, and with a sideswipe at Silence Of
The Lambs! Joey plays Patrick Sisi, a gallery owner falling in love
with striking Demi Amore, aka Angel (Racel Tuazon), while
accidentally eating the favourite pet goose of his neighbourhood
serial killer (called "Father", apparently, judging from
his knuckle tatts). With his bug-eyed, magnificently mulletted dwarf
sidekick Charlie Sheng (Noel "Ungga" Ayala), he attempts to
contact Father's first victim, but batty clairvoyant Groovy Goldberg
- Whoopi she ain't! - instead conjures up the ghost of Mahal the
Goose and it enters Angel's body, leaving her a honking simpleton to
the horror of her father (Panchito). Meanwhile Ungga and the next
door kids don the Goosebuster overalls and ecto-backpacks to battle a
twenty-foot goose skeleton spitting laser beams from its eye sockets.
Huh? As truly insane as it sounds, with regulation musical numbers
(The Sound Of Music's "Do Re Mi" is now a ditty about
cooking seafood), and a disturbing level of dwarf abuse, in which
Ungga is kicked, beaten, slapped, caught in a sun roof and thrown
upside down against a chair, all in the name of Comedy Gold.

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HERR LEAVOLD

Andrew Leavold owned and managed Trash Video, the largest cult video rental store in Australia, from 1995 to 2010. He is also a film-maker, published author, researcher, film festival curator, musician, and above all, unrepentant and voracious fan of the pulpier aspects of genre cinema. His writing has been published globally in mainstream magazines, academic journals and underground cinema fanzines, for the last two decades.

Leavold toured the world with his feature length documentary The Search For Weng Weng (2013). His ten years of research on genre filmmaking in the Philippines formed the basis of Mark Hartley's documentary Machete Maidens Unleashed! (released internationally in 2010), on which Leavold is also Associate Producer, and he has since been recognized both in the Philippines and abroad as the foremost authority in his area of expertise, teaching Philippine film history at university level in Australia, the United States, and throughout the Philippines. Leavold teamed with Daniel Palisa to co-direct The Last Pinoy Action King (2015), both a feature-length documentary on the late Filipino action idol Rudy Fernandez, and a dissection of film royalty, politics, privilege, idolatry, and the Philippines’ pyramid of power.

He is currently shooting two new feature-length documentaries – The Most Beautiful Creatures On The Skin Of The Earth (also with Palisa), the third in his Filipino trilogy, about erotic cinema under Marcos; and Pub, a history of the vibrant St Kilda music scene as told through its most outrageous progeny, Fred Negro. Both films are due for release in 2018.